Just as the New York Times prepares to start charging for their carefully fact-checked content The Huffington Post goes and make their case for them. The Huffington Post published a piece by Jeffrey Hoffman headlined 
“Could The 2010 World Cup Be A Disaster In the Making?” (Posted: January 14, 2010 09:15 AM), thought better of it, and then pulled it from its website to the apparent surprise of the author. It can still be accessed at this URL but does not appear on a public list of stories attributed to Hoffman.
Hoffman subsequently tweets “Hold on…now I see that The Huffington Post has pulled my last blog. What is their problem? All I reported on is history…NOT my opinion! 3:43 PM Jan 15th” and “I need to find out what their issues are, if I am going to continue to try and offer them my best ideas regarding reality as we know it. 3:44 PM Jan 15th.”
In his post Hoffman wrote that “Most would agree that three of the major venues, Johannesburg, Durban, and Capetown are cities where lawless mobs run rampant and threaten both classes on a regular daily basis.” Hoffman suggests Googling the Johannesburg Times for the endless tale of horror that in his opinion is South Africa. Of course no such paper exists. “If you Google the Johannesburg Times, you will be shocked to find numerous stories every day about all different kinds of good and decent individuals, whose lives have been tragically cut short by crazed lunatics who never ever know their victims…and sadly, never will,” he writes.
Why would The Huffington Post, which seems to employ and significant number of editorial staff, run a story so obviously based on, well, Google? Which references a non-existent newspaper? And then pull it from public access without an explanation to readers or the author? It speaks of poor editorial decision making and dubious journalistic ethics. Shame on one of my favorite reads.
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This thing has 8 Comments
I’m not sure they can be said to have pulled the piece. At this point most of the traffic to that piece will surely be coming from links on other sites and search engines and so on. As long as they keep it in the back (without an editor’s comment or anything added) they’re still standing by the piece.
Thanks Phillip – two points. The author suggests that the piece had been pulled in his tweets and I’m unable to find the story on the Huffington Post via its internal search engine when searching for “South Africa Jeffrey Hoffman” (as an example).
So I don’t know of a way to access the post via The Huffington Post though you can access the story via search engines and other links. To me it suggests that they took steps to remove live access to the story via their publicly accessible pages. Does this really suggest they stand by the piece?
What astonishes me about all of the negative press about South Africa’s hosting of the World Cup (whether it is RW Johnson’s rants about witchcraft in the London Review of Books, the British media searching out Afrikaners in the Limpopo Province, The Sun putting up a front page story about prostitutes or when Angola was confused with South Africa after the attack on Togolese footballers in Cabinda) is that (1) it insults South African football fans by suggesting they think the World Cup will lead to economic development (especially the creation of jobs); and (2) somehow the critics have discovered that the World Cup will be accompanied by crime. These same critics do not write about crime when the 1995 Rugby World Cup was held in South Africa (that was after all still a time when whites openly showed their racism), or the cricket World Cup, or when the lucrative Indian Premier League cricket competition was moved to South Africa after India was found to be too dangerous, or when the British Lions toured South Africa, or even now when England’s cricket’s team is here?
The author clearly suffers from congenital idiocy, so I wouldn’t take him too seriously. But you’re right; they’ve actually tweaked the search engine to exclude it. A search formatted as ["Johannesburg Times" site:huffingtonpost.com] on Google brings up the piece, but no combination of search terms will bring it up on the Google Custom implementation on HufPost.
An upstanding publication trying to sweep the issue under the carpet without addressing it. Nice. Real nice.
They probably also believe that we have lions prowling in our backyards…
it’s still the silly season, and making it up is a great option when faced with a) doing some research or b) going to the pub.
I don’t know if it was related; but shortly after I published Mr. Hoffman’s post, at More Journalists Wondering: “Is the 2010 World Cup a Disaster in the Making?”; Huffington Post, pulled the story.
As I said in my comment thereto:
[The Post was subsequently removed by Huffington Post Editor, who stuck up the following Note:
Editor's Note: Jeffrey Hoffman's post, "Could The 2010 World Cup Be A Disaster In the Making?," has been removed due to factual inaccuracy and inflammatory language.
The 'Editor' does not clarify exactly which alleged facts were indeed factually inaccurate; and if so, how. Which particular facts are allegedly inacurate, and what are the allegedly accurate facts to replace them?. Or are the alleged 'inaccurate facts' those which are disobedient to the Huffington Post Editorial ideological Bias? Nor is it clear what the Huffington Post mean by 'inflammatory language';
inflammatory to whom? I mean the Pentagon considered the Pentagon Papers inflammatory language, if revealed to ignorant American citizens. The Catholic Church considered the Bible inflammatory language if revealed to the People, prior to the 'inflammatory language' of Martin Luther. So, what exactly do they mean by 'infllamatory language'?]
It is also rather intersting that Facebook Deletes Boycott 2010 World Cup Campaign; particularly considering the media campaign against the Boycott 2010 World Cup Campaign, by various high goverment and media officials:
See:
» » [Pro-SA “Boycott 2010 World Cup” Campaign on Facebook]
» » [Notice to IOL.co.za Technology Editor; c/o & via: Independent News & Media PLC Board of Directors: RE: Violations of Press Code Allegations]
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